Hip-hop icon’s murder trial begins
Two men who are accused of killing Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay were both close to the trailblazing DJ, but were driven by “greed and revenge” over a failed drug deal when they ambushed him at his recording studio more than 20 years ago, prosecutors argued as the men’s trial began on Monday.
Assistant US Attorney Miranda Gonzalez laid out the prosecution’s case that Karl Jordan Jr, the hiphop star’s godson, and Ronald Washington, a childhood friend, killed the 37-year-old in 2002 after they were cut out of a lucrative cocaine deal. Both men have pleaded not guilty.
While the case languished for almost two decades until Jordan and Washington were arrested in 2020, Gonzalez told jurors that they would hear from eyewitnesses who were in the studio that night, and that the pair confessed their involvement to others.
“Each defendant was proud that they had taken down Jam Master Jay and got away with it,” she said.
Washington’s lawyer, Ezra Spilke, however, argued that the case was held together with “tape and glue”, and declared that prosecutors have “no clue” who killed the DJ, who was born Jason Mizell.
“This case is about 10 seconds, 21 years ago,” he said. “It’s a blink of an eye, a generation ago.”
NO DEATH PENALTY
The men face at least 20 years in prison if convicted. The government has said it would not seek the death penalty.
Mizell worked the turntables alongside rappers Joe ‘Run’ Simmons and Darryl ‘DMC’ McDaniels as the group helped bring hip-hop into the mainstream in the 1980s with hits like
and a remake of
It’s Tricky
Walk This Way.
Aerosmith’s
Run-DMC famously espoused an anti-drug stance in lyrics and
PSAs, but Gonzalez said that as the spotlight faded, Mizell turned to the drug trade, serving as a middleman to sellers and buyers across the country. A few simple calls, she said, could earn him “hundreds of thousands” of dollars.
Mizell had allegedly acquired 10 kilogrammes (22 pounds) of the drug, which Washington, Jordan and others were going to distribute in the Baltimore area. But the dealer involved in the sale refused to work with Washington, cutting both defendants out of a potential $200,000 payday, she alleged.
Gonzalez said that in the days leading up to his death, Mizell acted troubled and carried a gun. On the night of October 30, 2002, however, he barely had time to react when the two men and an accomplice, Jay Bryant, showed up at his studio in Jamaica, Queens. Bryant was charged last year after he was seen going into the building the night of the killing and his DNA was recovered at the scene. He will be tried separately.